With Euro 2024 under way, much of the world will be turning its attention to football this summer. But while the focus might be on the big stadiums and national teams, the game continues to be played every day on street corners and in parks across the globe. In Spain, the southern gateway to Europe, football can play a transformative role in migrant communities, bringing hope and opportunity to many of the thousands who arrive each year from South America and Africa. In 2023, nearly 57,000 migrants arrived in Spain, travelling by sea and across Europe’s land borders, and there were more than 160,000 first-time applications for asylum, including from 2,505 minors.
Many of them have joined football clubs formed in Spain’s towns and cities with the aim of giving migrants a chance to flourish in their new homes.
FC Darna
“I crossed the sea two years ago with a dream: to play for Barcelona,” says Zakaria Ezzouyn. The Moroccan’s first stop was the Canary Islands, “then I arrived in Barcelona and here I met the people who are now my other family: FC Darna”.
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Zakaria Ezzouyn, whose dream is to play for Barcelona
FC Darna began in Barcelona as an association to help young unaccompanied migrants. When some of the boys asked the president, Àngela Pérez-Chuecos, to create a football team, she took a leap of faith and in 2019 founded FC Darna, an 11-a-side team without money and with few prospects, but full of enthusiasm.
Today, they still have limited resources, but take part in the Quarta Catalana (the fourth Catalan football division) and are aiming to become league champions.
Darna, which means “home” in Arabic, is “a place to build an identity”, says their volunteer coach, Sergi Llamas, who is helping them achieve their dream of promotion. The team’s players represent several different countries, though most came from Morocco.
“They migrated to Barcelona and formed a football team to hold on to life,” says Llamas.
Los Jugones
“I have always felt welcomed and respected in the Jugones team,” says Samira Amaazoule, who is from Morocco and is a member of Madrid’s Los Jugones (The Players) club. “I play with a hijab because of my beliefs, and no one questions me; they respect me. So much so that if it falls off during a match, they form a circle around me, stop the game and wait until I am ready.” But that was before, she adds. “One day, my coach, Ángel, found a sports hijab, and that was the end of the problem,” she says with a laugh.
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Samira Amaazoule (main image) plays for Los Jugones, a club which encourages young players such as twins Yaser and Yassin el Tahiri (above), who came to Spain from Morocco
“There is no victory without respecting the values of the sport,” says Ángel Bellón, founder and coach of the Jugones team. “In a team, we’re better,” is the motto of the club, which was created four years ago in Villanueva del Pardillo, a suburb of the capital. The club’s goal is not just to play football but also to promote gender equality and the cultural integration of migrant communities, says Bellón.
Las Madres Dragonas
Fátima Boubkri came to Spain from Morocco 18 years ago. Today, she works as a waitress, but also dedicates her time to promoting integration within Lavapiés, the multicultural neighbourhood with the highest migrant density in Madrid, using football as a tool.
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Rachida Elyatim with her son Mohamed (main image) was persuaded to join the team by Fátima Boubkri, who is shown holding a football (above)
There are 21 teams that are part of Dragones de Lavapiés and Boubkri is the soul of one of them, Las Madres Dragonas (the Dragon Mothers). They play under a mural that reads: “Socially equal, totally free.”
“We used to wait for the children every day while they trained, and one day I wondered, why not us? Our children now cheer us on during the games,” she says.
Rachida Elyatim came to Spain a few years ago with her husband and their son, Mohamed Ejbari. “I hardly spoke any Spanish, I hardly ever left the house, but one day Fátima convinced me and now thanks to the Dragon Mothers, I am integrating.”
Las Alacranas
“Without football, I wouldn’t be the person I am right now,” says Verónica Gastelurt. “My grandmother took care of us with my father, but she died in an accident. My father fell into depression and couldn’t take care of us; I had to go to live in a shelter.
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Verónica Gastelurt coaches the youth team as well as playing for the Alacranas
“My life became very difficult until I met the Alacranas (the Scorpions). They gave me a scholarship and I was able to turn to football. They gave me back my life. I know people who have gone through similar things to me and because they didn’t have a sport or any other leisure activity to vent, they ended up very badly.”
The Alacrán Association is a non-profit organisation based in the north of Madrid. In addition to juggling two jobs, Gastelurt makes time to coach the youth team. Among them are girls who come from shelters, many of them minors of Moroccan origin.
Javier Fernandez “Cambro”, the Alacranas’ coach, says: “We are like a great pirate ship that rescues broken people to help them stay afloat.”
Los Dragones
Bako Diarra fled the war in Mali and arrived in Spain not knowing anyone before joining one of the Dragones de Lavapiés teams. “I came from Mali, fleeing the war. Things were very complicated in my country. I didn’t know anyone here, and thanks to the Dragones de Lavapiés, I can now focus on my life. They also help me with all the paperwork and even help us find jobs,” says Diarra.
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Bako Diarra (main image and above) says that thanks to Los Dragones, ‘I can now focus on my life’
Coaches at the club emphasise football’s role as a focal point for integration. Los Dragones provides the opportunity for migrants and refugees to connect, and to build new lives.
Los Dragones are one of the 100 European teams that have been chosen to be part of the Adidas Football Collective, an initiative supporting grassroots football in Europe.
The Football for Hope project by Javier Zurita and Ofelia de Pablo is a touring exhibition. A collaborative project with the migrants of FC Darna called Goals for Change will be presented at Nau Bostik in Barcelona in October